1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a high-performance tire, and, more particularly, to a tread pattern of a tire which has wave-shaped and straight grooves capable of maintaining desired block rigidity and hydroplaning performance of the tire.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, high-performance tires have been more favorable to drivers, in particular, drivers of offroad vehicles, because such a high-performance tire exhibits superior handling stability in accordance with a combination of wide tread grooves and a rubber compound used in the tire.
Generally, such a high-performance tire, referred to as an “ultrahigh-performance tire”, is defined as a tire enabling high-speed running and having a low aspect ratio, even though the definition is more or less different among tire manufacturers. Such a high-performance tire has features of improved handling and braking performances because the tire is designed to have tread blocks having a size larger than those of radial tires for general cars.
However, although such a high-performance tire practically exhibit considerably superior results in terms of handling and breaking performances, as compared to radial tires for general cars, the tire exhibits a degradation in the performance associated with hydroplaning, that is, slippage of the tire caused by a water film formed on the surface of the tread contacting the ground when the vehicle runs on a wet road, namely, hydroplaning performance, because the grounding length of the tread is reduced due to an increase in the rigidity of the tread caused by the increased grounding width of the tread.
FIG. 9 is a view illustrating a tread pattern of a conventional high-performance tire. This tire includes a tread 10 having straight grooves 101 extending in a running direction of the tire, and blocks 103. In this tread pattern, the width of each straight groove 101 is limited to a certain width, in order to obtain a desired rigidity of the blocks 103.
For this reason, in order to enable the blocks 103 itself to exhibit superior rigidity, and to prevent degradation in block rigidity, it is necessary to limit the width of the straight grooves 101 to a desired small width.